Synopsis

The Z Warriors discover an unopenable music box and are told to open it with the dragon balls. The contents turn out to be a warrior named Tapion who had sealed himself inside along with a monster called Hildegarn. Goku must now perfect a new technique to defeat the evil monster.

I have been having a DBZ movie marathon and out of all of them so far this would be one of my favorites. If you want to see some hard core super saiyan leveling than this is your movie, along with the 12th movie. I would say both were epic and worth watching.

I have done many anime reviews and this will be my first anime movie review, I have been busy making a couple of anime reviews on youtube so writing one takes a little more time and effort but without further ado I give you my opinion on DBZ Wrath of the Dragon!

Story- Now not gonna lie but some of the DBZ movies have sucked the big one. Others were just very forgettable and average and yet some had brilliance. This one is one of the two I believe were the best. Wrath of the Dragon puts such an emphasis on a finally super battle. For
those of you who don’t like GT and have not seen Battle of the Gods, Wrath of the Dragon occurs right after the Buu saga is concluded and it is really something special. The idea of the villain was pretty genius just like the casting of a new protagonist. Is there continuity issues? A little bit but if I explained than there would spoilers and I like to keep my reviews spoiler free. It could drag on in some parts but for the majority of the movie it’s everything you wanna see, the Z fighters fighting against a huge overpowered monster with an awesome finishing technique. Solid 9 out of 10.

Art- The art was just as amazing in this movie as it is in the original DBZ. Every color and attack is crisp and bursting with beauty. I mean funimation knows what they are doing when it comes to making sure the art style is flawless. Obv. It is not the best but it is certainly amazing to gaze upon.

Sound- Same sound from DBZ, original soundtracks and same voice actors. My opinion is the DB(Z)(GT) subs suck and the dub is incredible but all the voice actors are the same for both sub and dub so no worries for those out there who haven’t seen it and want to know if the same voices they are accustomed to are in the movie.

Character- Well, there are the same characters in this as there are in DBZ so there is not too much I can say. The new protagonist added a huge emotional effect that sometimes could be lacking and the new villains were very much like Babidi and Buu with their type of controlling relationship. Other than that nothing more I could say without repeating myself from my DBZ review.

Overall this is probably a tie for the best DBZ movie. It has a lot of heart and great fighting sequences. The art is great along with the original soundtracks, it is a no brainer, if you are a DBZ fan and you haven’t seen this do yourself a favor and watch it, you will not be disappointed. This is the epitome of a fun action anime movie that you can over and over again and never get bored, final score… OVER 9000! (very overused line haha)

Anyone who's watched a few DBZ movies knows that the quality can vary from horrible to pretty awesome. This is more or less on the higher end of the scale.

___The Story:
A mysterious old man asks Gohan and the others to summon Shenron in order to free a warrior named Tapion from an enchanted music box. Upon doing so the group unknowingly puts the Earth in danger as another being is released from the seal.

To be honest, the writing was a little weak. This is mostly because the backstory for the new characters is very generic. So let's move on to characters.

___The Characters:
I know there's the
expression "there are no new ideas," but honestly the writers could have tried a little harder. The bad guy seems to have no real reason to be evil...he just is. His whole species just likes to wipe out other lifeforms (convenient instant enemy). I won't judge this too harshly though, I mean, this is DBZ we're talking about.

In terms of the good guy (Tapion), he has a generic tragic hero past. However, he's pretty likable, especially in his interactions with Trunks. In fact I enjoyed Tapion and Trunks' character development about as much as the final fight.

Also, this is a side note, but Bulma got a chance to shine a bit, too. She lent a listening ear when Tapion needed it, and showed how intelligent she is as well, which was nice to see. Anyway...

___The Fights:
Don't let the synopsis at the top of the page fool you; Goku doesn't spend time practicing/"perfecting" a new technique; he just does the attack once in the final fight. Granted he looks cool doing it, but it's hard not to make a Super Saiyan look cool. The fights were ok, and I think most people watching will enjoy them. Just don't go into the movie expecting Goku vs Frieze level epicness.

___Overall:
Overall I liked it! There were some decent fights and some good dialogue all the way through. I think you kind of know what to expect when watching a DBZ movie, and this doesn't deviate too much from the format that we're used to.

There is something that happens at the very end which confused me a little in terms of the future timeline, but that could just be me and not an error in continuity. I'm not going to post a spoile,r though.

It's less than an hour long so I encourage you to check it out if you have a free moment!

Time to take a look at the last DBZ movie to have an English dub, that is until Battle of the Gods is dubbed. While on a personal level, I hold this as the greatest DBZ film ever, let's look at it objectively.

Story: The story is your standard DBZ plot. Giant alien comes to Earth in hopes of destroying the planet and the Super Saiyans have to destroy it. However, quite a bit of time is spent developing the newer characters, such as Hoi and Tapion, and Tapion's relationship to Trunks. Granted, this isn't the first DBZ film to put a lot of focus on
character development, the first Broly movie did the same, this one seems to put the story over the action, which can be either good or bad depending on how you look at it. Personally, I loved it because it helped make Tapion more relateable and thus making him a better character. By the time the movie is finished, it does tie itself into the main series by giving an explanation to a minor thing that fans may not have needed an explanation for, but it's great that they did anyway.

Art: Surprisingly, the art is actually more detailed than previous films. All of the previous DBZ films that I've seen used the same art style as the main show without much more put in. Villains were also either bland looking or based of already established characters (Cooler looking like Frieza, but with a few minor differences and Broly pretty much being Goku on about 50 lbs. of steroids). The design of Hirudegarn, while bland at first with a few shades of brown and white, drastically changes into one of the best designs of the series once it sheds its skin. Watching the way it moves is just amazing. However, a lot of the other art is just sharpened, which isn't bad, but it's not adding a whole lot more to what we had before.

Sound: Aside from the usual characters, Tapion and Hoi sound great. There were a few moments where Tapion's voice seemed to drain any emotion the actor put in, but it didn't bother me too much. The only disappointment I had with voices was Hirudegarn's roar. It's just a generic monster roar. This is a completely different monster from anything else shown in the show, yet it sounds just like everything else. As for the music, the most you'll get is the song that Tapion plays every now and again in order to keep Hirudegarn sealed away. While the first few times sound the same, which I don't mind, the song is beautiful, it's the very last time that Tapion plays the song that truly shows how amazing it is. Everything surrounding this moment along with the added instruments to the song make it one of the most memorable songs in any DBZ movie. Yeah, it's not another rock song like other ones, but this one didn't need to be. It's great all on its own.

Character: Like stated earlier, a lot of time is spent developing Tapion and Hoi, so for the movie to work, the characters have to be likable, which they are. While Hoi is just your average villain that wants to do anything to take over the universe like every other DBZ villain, Tapion is quite interesting. He starts off as this loner that doesn't want anyone around, but by the time his backstory is fully explained, it's understandable why he always wants to be left alone. Yeah, he does eventually warm up to everyone else, but it never feels rushed. It's all natural, which is hard to pull off sometimes.

Enjoyment: As stated at the beginning, this is my favorite DBZ film out of the ones I've seen. For the longest time, this was the last DBZ film with no other one in sight and I was proud that the series went out this way. Then Battle of the Gods came, so it didn't end here. Having not yet seen Battle of the Gods, I have no room to judge the movie on how it shows off the DBZ characters and there's supposed to be more movies after that one, so the series is still going. No matter what, though, this will be my favorite of the series. I hope I've shown you why, and if not, well at least I tried.